Circulating Tumor Cell Chip in Breast Cancer for Theragnosis based on Surface—Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract

Circulating Tumor Cell Chip in Breast Cancer for Theragnosis based on Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Dissertation Director: Professor Jeong-Woo Choi Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are emerging biomarkers, especially in case of liquid biopsy, and important indicator for prognosis monitoring in case of personalized anticancer therapy. CTC analysis is a promising diagnostic method for estimating the risk of metastatic relapse and metastatic progression in patient with cancer. The basic problem of CTC study is their extremely low inherent numbers in blood (around one CTC per 10° non cancerous hematopoietic cells). Hence, before detection or characterization of CTCs their isolation is important. A subpopulation of CTCs with stemlike behavior are known as stem-like circulating tumor cells (SCTCs). In recent years stem like cancer cells (SCCs) hypothesis has attracted great attention in the field of cancer biology. According to the concept, a minor